Stay Silent And Get Fluent...Quickly!

Immersion seems so natural and yet there hardly seems to be any Spanish-learning methodology more controversial than this! Why exactly? Well, apparently there doesn’t exist a definitive answer yet but it can be vehemently affirmed that there exist more plausible evidences proving its benefits than the contrary. Actually, even the academic purists vouch for total immersion. Where, then, do we disagree? That bone of contention is called “grammar”. While academics consider it the be-all of any Spanish language acquisition program, successful polyglots unanimously counter it with what they call “silent, no-frills input”.

Ever since we started learning a language that was not our own (English for most of us), we have been wired with the idea that grammar is the start and end of learning a language. Let us shock you now with an assertion: This is precisely the opposite of what really is. Yes, it is possible to get fluent in any human language, let alone Spanish, while never turning a single page of that grammar book! To shock you even further, learning a language without touching grammar is a more efficient and quicker way and the only natural way of doing it. And we are not even the first ones laying this claim. This assertion is backed by rock-solid linguistic research and results experienced by established polyglots all over the world learning all kinds of language.

An example from my life

So, back to learning Spanish. Where do we start if not with grammar? The most efficient idea, which we will be harping on shamelessly throughout our conversation, is to doggedly focus on absorbing the language to the point of saturation to begin with. Note that this article prefer using the word, “absorbing” instead of “learning” when it comes to Spanish, or any language for that matter. There’s a massive difference.

Learning is what I did with Sanskrit when I was in high school. Did I like Sanskrit? Hell, no! But I had to learn out of compulsion. And I did! Crammed up every single word in the ugly little textbook and all the complex case-tables mandated by the Sanskrit grammar and actually scored good grades on my tests. In fact, when it came to tests, I fared better in Sanskrit than in English or even my mother tongue, Hindi! But, was it any useful? No. I was never able to have a 30-second elevator chat with someone in Sanskrit while I could rattle off in English or Hindi for hours at a stretch.

The silent-period is a wonder-drug for fluent Spanish!
Photo credit: Knight Foundation licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

So where does this leave us? What I did with Sanskrit here is called learning, while I had simply absorbed English and Hindi. What I am trying to establish here is that learning a language is reading and memorizing words and grammar rules for a purpose. A short-term goal, e.g., a test. This can get you good grades on a test but will never make you practical in that tongue. If you wish to get fluent in any language and be able to converse with native speakers with ease, what you need is absorption. Soak up the language. Listen to it and let it roil inside you. Saturate yourself with the input to a point of absolute comfort. That’s when you should consider practicing the language and referring to its grammar.

Silent-period

We all know and have been told countless times that absorption is how we acquired our mother tongue and hence it is the most natural methodology. Putting it in practice for a second language like Spanish, however, gets more radical. The idea is to not attempt to speak a word of Spanish nor read any grammar for a pretty long time. Some call this the “silent period”. During this silent period, all efforts must be invested in listening. Listen to Spanish. Authentic Spanish. As much as possible. Watch telenovelas, listen to podcasts, listen to Spanish music, watch Spanish movies...just listen incessantly. Only when the time is right, should you consider producing some Spanish.

Break your silence when the time is right

The obvious next question would be, when? Well, when the time is right, you just know it. Think of it as an extremely annoying and ubiquitous TV commercial. Your guts hate that commercial and the moment it comes on TV, you curse under your breath. But just because it’s being shown over and over again, day in and day out, did you notice something? It started growing on you! Ever found yourself subconsciously humming the jingle in your shower or while you are cooking? That’s the power of your subconscious. You absorbed that commercial. The words, the sentence structures, the patterns, the intonation, everything. And, only when you are saturated, does it become your second nature to reproduce the sounds you absorbed and you start humming them unknowingly.

It’s the same with Spanish. When you are too loaded, you will start producing automatically. Not only will you start speaking spontaneously, but you’ll also start developing an ear for what word combination or pattern sounds right and what just doesn’t. All this when you haven’t started studying the rules governing the sentence structures in Spanish! In other words, you will recognize the very signature of Spanish and this is all it takes for you to be eventually fluent like the natives. Call it overkill if you will, but if it worked for me, I am sure it will for you too.

And when is that?

So again, when is the right time? Some say it’s 10,000 hours while some say it’s 800. The numbers would largely depend on your individual knack and environment and our advice would be to steer clear of any number written-in-stone. There’s no magic count at which you’ll suddenly start rattling in Spanish like a native speaker. This is, instead, a very personal and subjective concept. As a thumb-rule, we would still recommend no less than 500 hours of silent period before you even think of taking the plunge.

Again, what is immensely important is that these 500 hours must be evenly spaced out and must be consistent over a period of time. What is meant is that if you spend 8 hours watching telenovelas on the first day and then only 30 minutes the next day and skip it completely on the third day, don’t expect any miracles. It’s better, instead, to spend an equal amount of time, even it it’s as little as only 2 hours, every day without any compromise whatsoever until you hit the 500-hour mark (or 800 or 1,000).

Oh, and before we forget grammar, do use it. But only as a reference to understand anything that confuses you, not as a homework. Our suggestion, start using grammar only after you are comfortable conversant in Spanish, only in order to polish and buff-up your language skills. Isn’t this what you did to your native lingo anyways? You were already fluent in your mother tongue way before you were taught the first grammar rule for that language. Remember the same for Spanish and you should be able to fool the natives with your accent in no time.

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22 Things A Smart-Ass Would Do Learning Spanish

We as humans love lists. Whether it’s with learning Spanish or with anything else, lists make our exercises seem more doable and within reach than they actually are. So, when it comes to learning a foreign language where we could use any help available to make it easier, such a list won’t be a bad idea! Taking this philosophy ahead, this article summarizes some of the most important advises for the convenience of those learning Spanish in a numbered list. Needless to say, it is strongly recommended that you keep a hard copy of this list handy for reasonably regular reference. Won’t hurt to put it up on that refrigerator.

The 22 important tasks for easy Spanish

You’d better be obsessed with Spanish
Photo credit: gthills licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

1. During the initial phase of your Spanish-learning program, just try to listen to Spanish as much as possible. This is essential for you if you wish to develop an ear for Spanish. Listen to radio broadcasts and podcasts in Spanish and there are many available for free just for you!


2. Develop a deeply-rooted desire, a compulsion, or even better, an obsession to learn Spanish. Without an obsession, you are not likely to get too far. Lack of a compulsive desire to master the language is, by far, the biggest reason behind people quitting their Spanish programs half-way through.


3. Maximize the utilization of time otherwise wasted, in learning Spanish. Every time you find yourself waiting at the doctor’s office, standing in that line, waiting for the elevator, or lying sleepless in bed, treat that free time as a window of opportunity that mustn’t be wasted.


4. Never learn individual words off a dictionary. Always think and read in context. Learn phrases instead of words. It’s always easier, more practical, and more thorough to learn the Spanish for, say, “I am going to the bank”, instead of the Spanish for each words individually. This helps you absorb subtle grammar too.


5. Visualize. Use your imagination as far as practically possible. Human brain retains wholesome imageries better than written words and sentences. Lifeless vocabulary and dead-beat grammar, when augmented with pictures and sounds tend to come alive and stay in your active memory for longer.


6. Create stories and write them out in Spanish as much as possible. Use native language for words whose Spanish is still unknown and look them up later. Then write the same story again. Repeat this until perfection.


7. Watch videos and original programming in Spanish. Youtube® is a massive reservoir of free resources of this kind and there are many more available on the Internet. LoMasTV® is another promising resource solely aimed at people who are learning Spanish.


8. Use flashcards, physical or virtual (e.g., Anki®) depending on your preferences, to review and consolidate newly acquired vocabulary. Again, use phrases or sentences instead of words for reasons stated earlier.


9. Use exotic mnemonics or other visual aids to learn and retain new Spanish vocabulary or concepts. The sillier your mnemonic, the better for retention. The more it stands out, the better it stays in!


10. Browse through a Spanish-English-Spanish dictionary as often as possible. Do not make a deliberate attempt to memorize words off the dictionary. Just browse and let interesting phrases drive home naturally. Pay more attention to the example phrases than the words themselves.


11. Draw two columns in a notebook and list out phrases, those in your native language on the right and the Spanish equivalent on the left. This is another memory aid that functions in a fashion not much different from flashcards.


12. Pick an extremely primitive kids’ story book (fairy tales or fables), and try translating it into Spanish. Be creative and use your imagination to improvise on the original plot. Make it as funny and silly as possible utilizing your knowledge of Spanish and a limited vocabulary.


13. This one is interesting and we are not sure of the rationale behind this tip in learning Spanish but they say it works anyway: Learn the past tense before learning the present and the latter before the future tense. Maybe because that’s the natural order of events? One seriously wouldn’t know but it surely looks like a harmless experiment nonetheless.


14. Pick unfamiliar Spanish sounds and practice them while driving or taking a shower, or whenever you find yourself alone doing something mundane. An example could be the notorious “rr” sound of Spanish!


15. Use free online resources for not only learning Spanish but also learning interesting things about the culture of places where Spanish is spoken. Develop an affinity for the Latino lifestyle and culture.


16. You must have read several books and stories in your native language before. Now, try reading them in Spanish. Use a dictionary if you need but don’t revert to your native language, come whatever may.


17. Read comics and graphic novels in Spanish.


18. Try thinking in Spanish instead of first thinking in English and then translating your thoughts into Spanish before speaking.


19. Read Spanish grammar. Yes, it is true that we always encourage you to stay away from memorizing those regimented rules of grammar like the plague but reading them is another story altogether. Just browse through that Spanish grammar tome without dwelling on any rule or memorizing it. Whatever is relevent or important will automatically stick to ur brain. Don’t do anything more than just frequently scanning the book.


20. Label most household items with their names in Spanish.

The 2 “most important” tasks for easy Spanish!

1. Make mistakes without regret or remorse.


2. Take a very short break every once in a while just to cool it off and to allow all that Spanish to sink in.

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Jacket Vs. Hand-Job!

Like all other tongues, the Spanish language too has its own share of regional quirkiness and the one from Mexico, in particular, is no different. In fact, it is this quirkiness of Mexican Spanish that makes it one of most learners’ top favorites amongst all known dialects of Spanish. Let’s explore this quirkiness in something as simple as a “jacket.” We all know it translates to la chaqueta in Spanish. What makes it so special here is that this seemingly innocent word for a piece of clothing has an embarrassing, far-from-innocent, kind of perverted connotation in the streets of Mexico and you must be careful when using it!

The Spanish for “jacket”

Do not call this a chaqueta in Mexico!
Photo credit: Marshall Astor licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Though Spanish has an extremely diverse vocabulary, enriched by the myriad indigenous cultures it has touched over centuries, we are going to be more concerned about the two most commonly used words for the humble “jacket” in the Spanish-speaking world – chamarra and chaqueta. Of these, chaqueta is the one that carries a sort of stigma at least in Mexico and should be avoided as far as possible if you happen to be in that part of the world. What’s wrong in calling a “jacket”, chaqueta?

Well, before that, let’s first get to know the word that Mexicans use for their jackets – chamarra. Now, chamarra means nothing other than a “jacket” and is hence understood in any Spanish-speaking country even though it is not common outside of Mexico. Same way, it’s not that the Mexicans don’t recognize the dictionary meaning of chaqueta which is commonly used everywhere outside of Mexico for “jacket.” Mexicans understand that chaqueta means jacket no less than their counterparts elsewhere but they choose to accept the other, more colloquial meaning that’s nothing short of taboo.

If you haven’t heard of chamarra yet, tarde o temprano (sooner or later) you will. What you should hope, though, is that you bear it well before you ever enter Mexico. If you need a jacket in Mexico, you say, “Hace frío por eso necesito una chamarra (It’s cold so I need a jacket),” and all’s well. By any chance, if you happen to use chaqueta in that sentence, nothing will say, “I am a stupid gringo,” clearer and louder! All of Mexico would unite in giving you the blush of your life before you even realize what you just said. Your problem intensifies as you move further south. In fact, most gringo-infested regions of northern Mexico do recognize chaqueta and honor its usage without much` fuss. but for the rest of the country, it’s just plain taboo. In fact, even Bolivians also prefer to avoid using this word for the same reason.

The chaqueta taboo

So, what the heck does chaqueta mean in Mexico anyway? And what makes it an embarrassment to the unsuspecting gringo? Well, for the lack of a more politically-correct word, it means “masturbation”. Blush, blush! Well, for whatever reason, the word has become integral to Mexico’s jargon of crude lingo and is applicable to both men and women. The act of self-gratification itself is better portrayed by the phrase, hacerse una chaqueta. Now, you can imagine the reaction of your Mexican buddies when you ask for a chaqueta because it’s so cold!

No, you will not be shot dead or deported if you do wind up using this word anyway. Like already mentioned above, chaqueta is well understood as the Spanish for “jacket” even in Mexico, more so in the north. It’s just that because it has a dirtier meaning, they would prefer to hang on to the latter and make the most of the situation at your expense, laughing their hearts out. It is our two cents, though, to steer clear of chaqueta in Mexico and stick to chamarra instead, unless some sort of pun is intended. On the other hand, innocent mistake could make you sound kinky to Mexican ears and possibly win you some amigos (friends) or even dates, who knows! The choice is yours.

More Spanish for more jackets

The Spanish for a suit-jacket, by the way, is saco and is so on both sides of the Atlantic. Also, Spain has cazadoras that refers to more informal types of jackets, such as denims or bombers. In the name of variety, chumpa is another word for “jacket” used in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras while in Ecuador, they have chompa. And Peruvians and Chileans use casaca! Wait, there is more! If you ever visit Argentina, Uruguay, or Paraguay, you’ll hear them call it campera. And as far as chamarra goes, it’s not just the Mexicans. Chamarra is also known and prevalent in Bolivia and as far away as Andalusia of southern Spain. Even more interestingly, in Costa Rica, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, they just use the English word with a Spanish pronunciation (they pronounce it /yah-'ket/).

So, before concluding this article, let’s summarize the idea: Spanish has two words for a jacket, la chamarra and la chaqueta. while both words are well known in all of Hispanosphere, the former is the only one used in Mexico and the latter, elsewhere. Moreover, la chaqueta has a very vulgar meaning in Mexico and is better not used when talking about the item of clothing.

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Taking A Bath Or Taking A Shower?

Two words one picks up pretty early in their Spanish-learning program are ducharse and bañarse. If you are one of them, you already know what grammar has to say about their meanings – that ducharse means “to shower” and bañarse means “to bathe”. Simple, isn’t it? Unfortunately, you are in for a little bit of disappointment if you spent countless hours cramming up these meanings off the dictionary. Why? Well, because the streets of Latin America have a slightly different way of talking about bathing. This is another of the several classic examples of how the Spanish language has evolved differently in different cultures.

Mexicans don’t duchar

Me voy a bañar en la ducha
Photo credit: Suedehead licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

As mandated by the dictionaries, both these verbs are reflexive which means in Spanish, you don’t bathe; instead, you “bathe yourself”. Same goes for shower. So, voy a ducharme/bañarme is “I am going to take shower/bath,” and so is me voy a duchar/bañar.

Now back to Mexico. Here, people use bañarse for the action regardless of whether it’s performed under a shower or in a hot-tub! So, me voy a bañar or voy a bañarme would mean both “I am going to take bath”, as well as “I’m going to take shower”. No need to use ducharse at all! So, now we know better that while in Mexico, you just use bañarse at all times. Also, it is worth mentioning here that you won’t go completely misunderstood if you do end up using ducharse in Mexico albeit it will surely give away your non-Mexican background.

So how do you tell the difference?

That pretty much simplifies everything. One word for both taking shower and taking bath means one fewer word to cram. But if you are like me, you will ask the million-dollar question: How to tell if one is actually taking shower under, well, a shower and not soaking in the bath? Turns out, there’s a simple, three-word solution, en la tina. This phrase when added to the verb, bañar, becomes bañarse en la tina and lends the effect of “bathing in the bath” to the sentence. So, if you want to say that you are going to bath specifically as against taking a shower, you’d simply say, voy a bañarme en la tina or me voy a bañar en la tina or me voy a tomar un baño de tina. The latter literally translates into “taking a bath in the bathtub”.

Me voy a bañar en la tina
Photo credit: Liza licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Similarly, bañarse en la ducha can be used to mean “taking shower under the shower.” No points for guessing that the verb, duchar (to shower) actually comes from the noun, ducha which means, you guessed it right, “shower.” Agreed, bañarse is much more simpler than bañarse en la tina and ducharse is much simpler than bañarse en la ducha but we all know Mexicans have their own crazy style of doing things.

So, by now you must have understood that la tina refers to “the bathtub” (also called la bañera) and la ducha, “the shower.” Again, only if life were that simple! You will often hear Mexicans using multiple words for everything including their bathtub which could also be referred to as la bañera or even la bañadera. Don’t worry, however, you will not be crucified if you do end up using ducharse for “taking a shower” as it is standard Spanish and educated speakers round the world understand standard Spanish quite well. You won’t sound, er, Mexican though. Please note that this usage of bañarse for both bathing and taking shower could also exist in some other parts of Latin America, especially places that experience degrees of Mexican influence. In Spain, however, ducharse is the norm for what it means.

Further trivia

At this stage, it is important to add that while ducharse is alien to Mexican ears, it is also unheard of in many other Latin American countries, the Southern Cone in particular, i.e., Argentina, Peru, Chile, etc. On the other hand, in Spain, bañarse is used for bathing in any water body and not just a bathtub. So, you use bañarse when bathing in a river, beach, or even pool. Darse un regaderazo is what they say in El Salvador when talking about taking a shower. However, the same phrase would take on an entirely different meaning if you were in the Southern Cone. For example, in countries like Chile and Argentina, you would use the phrase when you talk about watering the plants.

Remember that, depending on the community you find yourself in, you could be either taking a bath (tomar un baño) or giving yourself a bath (darse un baño). Of course, the phrases become tomar una ducha and darse una ducha when an actual shower is being referred to. This is yet another variety that you could encounter if traveling to a Spanish-speaking country.

If these tidbits of street Spanish intrigue you and rake up your curiosity, feel happy for this is an indication that your mind is actively absorbing Spanish on its own without any use of force on your part! Learning Spanish can never be an act of reluctant force. You have to savor its rhythm, its diversity, its sound, and its rich vocabulary in order to ensure maximum absorption and minimum efforts.

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Of Pinky Swears And Middle Fingers

Here’s a classic example of what classrooms and grammar books do to your Spanish. One cannot doubt you must have learned and mugged up the Spanish names for the parts of your body right within the first few weeks of your Spanish learning program. So you know that mano means “hand” and dedos de la mano or deditos means “fingers”. What you don’t know and would have never been taught, however, is the names of each of those deditos in Spanish! It is these practical nuggets of interesting and useful trivia that classroom curriculums often sidestep, thereby giving you a Spanish that is both impractical and often deficient.

Names of the fingers

First off, there’s your thumb. This one is called dedo pulgar, or simply pulgar, in Spanish. Now, since Spanish doesn’t distinguish between fingers and toes, the word, pulgar, could stand for both thumb and the big toe. In cases of ambiguity, one could use pulgar de pie for the big toe and pulgar de mano for the thumb. In Spain, it is quite usual to refer to the big toe as dedo gordo del pie.

The one next to it is the índice (index finger or forefinger). Obviously, it derives from the same Latin source (index) that gave us the English term. Some dictionaries also call it dedo índice but you should do well with just índice in the real world.

The notorious middle finger, too, has a name of its own in Spanish. They call it dedo corazón, dedo medio, mayor, or simply, medio. I have no answers if you asked why it’s called dedo corazón (heart finger); maybe because it sits in the heart of the fingers when placed in order? Other two names, dedo mayor (large finger) and dedo medio (middle finger) are pretty self-explanatory.

Regardless of whether you are a gringo or a chilango, you always wear your ring on your dedo anular or just anular (ring finger). Incidentally, the ring itself is called anillo in Spanish and both anillo and anular derive from the Latin, ānulāris, which means “ring-shaped”. Remember what they taught you in school about an annular eclipse where the Sun looks like a ring? Guess you get the connection now.

Finally, that little pinky is called dedillo, dedo pequeño,  dedo meñique, or just meñique. One can also add del pie to dedo pequeño and refer to the corresponding toe as dedo pequeño del pie.

So there you are, five fingers each with a name in Spanish at your fingertips!

Doing things with your fingers in Spanish

Learning Spanish: Fingers crossed!
Photo credit: John Nakamura Remy licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Let’s now see what interesting things can be done with those fingers in Spanish. Naturally, this list would just be a part of a much bigger one and I would love to hear from you if there’s anything I don’t know and you find interesting!

promesa de meñique – This is “pinky swear” in Spanish. Not sure if you’re ever going to need this one but it helps to know that promesa is the Spanish for “promise” (needless to say, the two words share a common origin) and, hence, promesa de meñique stands for a “promise by the pinky” or, in other words, a “pinky swear”.

Keep in mind though that saying this to a native speaker would make them stare at you and shoot you an excessively confused look. The idea of a pinky promise is not as significant in Hispanic cultures as it is for those speaking English. So, a typically ignorant native speaker will just try to figure what your middle finger has to do with your promise and be utterly confused.

Santa flips the bird
Photo credit: Dan Century licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

cruzar los dedos – The Spanish word, cruzar, is a verb (notice the tell-tale -ar ending) that shares a common etymology with its English counterpart, “to cross”. This means, cruzar los dedos is essentially “to cross one’s fingers”. Spanish has yet another phrase if you want to “keep your fingers crossed” and it goes, mantener los dedos cruzados. The word, mantener is a verb that means “to maintain” (in the sense of “keeping something as is”) and cruzado comes from cruzar.

sacar el dedo – Also known as pintar el dedo, this is the most widely recognized gesture throughout the world no matter what language you speak. Regardless of what culture you come from, you are most likely to know how to “show a middle finger” and regardless of what language you speak, this gesture always means the same thing!

If you are in Colombia, hacer pistola a alguien (to give someone the finger) is what the locals use for this gesture although the other two are not always unheard of.

pulgar arriba – You use your thumb to show your appreciation for something in English and you use your pulgar to do so in Spanish. Same goes for showing dislike as well. So, pulgar arriba means “thumbs up” and the opposite, you guessed it right, pulgar abajo means “thumbs down”.

It helps to know that arriba is the Spanish for “up” and abajo, for “down”.

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A Bird In Hand Is Good Spanish

Picking a simple sentence, especially an interesting proverb or saying, and performing a grammar autopsy on it is perhaps the easiest way of understanding and learning some practical Spanish grammar without feeling monotonous. The grammar and vocabulary one absorbs this way is practically more sustainable as small sentences are better assimilated than larger bodies of work such as novels. Using small, manageable phrases you assimilate key concepts and become better equipped to produce spoken Spanish without mental translation. With this understanding, today, we will attempt to learn some Spanish using an age-old adage.

Más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando. (A bird in hand is worth a hundred flying.)

This is a widely recognized saying and perhaps exists in some form or the other in almost every major language spoken by humans. There might be some minor variations such as the one in English talking about “two birds in the bush” instead of the Spanish, “hundred birds flying,” but the essence remains the same. This universal recognition means you are far more likely to recall this sentence, almost as a catchphrase, than any other.

The nuts and bolts

Más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando
Photo credit: Steve Ryan licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Más: This word generally stands for “more” both in adverb as well as adjective forms. in this case it is used as an adverb, qualifying the verb following it.

vale: This is the singular third-person simple present tense form of the Spanish verb, valer, that means “to value” or “to score” in English. As you can easily notice, most “-er” verbs shed their “-r” when used with singular subjects in third person for the simple present tense. For plural subjects in third person (in simple present), they replace their terminal “-r” with an “-n”; for example, valer becomes valen.

pájaro: The Spanish for bird, this is essentially the subject in this sentence.

en: This one is simple; “in” is English and en is Spanish. That’s all there is...should be pretty easy to remember!

mano: This is the Spanish word for “hand”. Actually, mano has it’s roots in Latin from where English has borrowed quite quite a lot of it’s vocabulary as well. Evidently, the English word, “manual” draws from the same root and unsurprisingly stands for something done by hand. In this sentence, the complete subject, hence, is “bird in hand”.

que: This word (without the accent mark over “e”) usually stands for the English “that”. However, in certain contexts it can also come to mean “than” (in the sense of comparison), particularly when the sentence or phrase containing que also contains más (more) or menos (less).

ciento: This is how you say, “hundred” in Spanish. Remember, however, that it is ciento only as long as it is being used as a noun. If it modifies another noun, i.e., is being used as an adjective, it drops the last syllable and reduces to just cien. So, while “hundred men” is cien hombres (cien is an adjective), “hundred and ten” is ciento diez (ciento is a noun).

volando: This is the progressive or continuous form of the Spanish verb, volar (to fly). In English, we form the progressive of a verb by appending “-ing” to the base (infinitive without “to”) form. Thus, “to fly” becomes “flying” and “to eat” becomes “eating”. In Spanish, we do this by replacing “-ar” by “-ando”, and “-er” and “-ir” by “-iendo”. Hence, bailar  (to dance) becomes bailando (dancing) and vivir (to live) becomes viviendo (living) and, in this case, volar becomes volando (flying). That’s it!

String’em all together

Now, let’s put it all together. The sentence opens with más. Actually one of the ways this word is used to convey various quantity is by using it in conjunction with que. For example, in this context, the usage of más and que together indicates comparison (más...que stands for “more than” in a fashion similar to how menos...que stands for “less than”). So, más vale would just mean that something scores more or is valued more. Más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando literally means, “A bird in hand scores more than a hundred flying,” in the following structure:

Más (with que, as a tool for comparison; here, más stands for “more”) - verb (here, singular third-person simple-present tense of “to be worth”) - subject (here, a singular “bird in hand”) - que (with más as described earlier as a tool for comparison; here, que stands for “than”) - adjective (here, a number, “hundred” quantifying the object) - object (here, “birds in flight” with “birds” being implied but not stated).

Please note that the sentence structure here shows a stark departure from the simpler S-V-O (subject-verb-object) order we are so used to. Yes, Spanish is much more flexible in it’s order than English is and the various pieces of a typical Spanish sentence can take any position depending on the context. Typically, adjectives come before the nouns they qualify (not always though) and the subject comes before the verb (with the subject being omitted and only implied if it happens to be a pronoun, e.g., I, you, we, etc.). However, often, the V-S-O order is preferred with the verb coming before the subject in contexts where the action needs a subtle stress. This is what has happened in this sentence.

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Pick Your Flick And Acquire Spanish

Every Spanish-fanatic worth his grain would agree that the slowest means of acquiring Spanish is relegating the process to textbooks and whiteboards. Spanish is a language. An alive one at that. So, live it; indulge in it! One can’t stress enough the importance of breathing life into an otherwise highly unproductive regimented style of learning Spanish as institutionalized by the classrooms. So, as stated previously already, silent input for the win here! The advocates of immersive learning all unanimously underscore the importance of Spanish cinema as an extremely effective way of absorbing authentic real-world Spanish.

Why movies?

Spanish language cinema is rich in inspiring content
Photo credit: Marco Antonio Torres licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

There’s no denying the fact that the easiest and most effective means of breathing life into learning Spanish is by watching tons and tons and tons of Spanish movies. In loop. Over and over again until the dialogs come to you effortlessly. Movies not only inspire a genuine cultural interest in Spanish but also stir up your motivation to nail the language as quickly as practically possible.

Now the question is, what renders cinema this effective when it comes to learning Spanish? The reasons are many and the single most important one is their entertaining nature. No points for knowing that anything that is entertaining stays with us longer. We have a very selective that tends to discard anything insignificant and, at the same time, instantly absorb anything that is weird, interesting, larger-than-life, or just plain engaging. Anything that stirs up our emotions is guaranteed it’s spot in some of the most active quarters of our mind. And movies, without doubt, qualify in all aspects. They not only entertain, but also provide the ever important context for the Spanish that we absorb subconsciously while watching them repeatedly. This context acts as the cement that binds those newly-acquired dialogs and vocabulary firmly to our memory.

Where do I begin?

Spanish language films are more diverse than you thought!
Photo credit: Martha Silva licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

While every linguist and Spanish enthusiast I have spoken with to date has been unanimous on the role of Spanish movies in helping one acquire natural Spanish quickly, most learners are often clueless about where to begin. There are tons of flicks to choose from and then there are dozens of different Spanish dialects making the choice even more difficult. This article is an attempt to simplify this first step for Spanish learners who wish to be bewitched by the vast linguistic riches of Spanish cinema from both sides of the Atlantic.

My idea of an ideal movie for someone learning Spanish is that it should meet some very straightforward criteria to begin with. This movie should be

• Engaging – If the story engages you, you are more likely to remember the context. This also means that you are more likely to enjoy watching the same movie for the thirty-sixth time if you find it engaging enough.
• Powerful – If the story gives out a strong message (social, political, etc.) you are going to remember it frame-by-frame.
• Popular – If everyone around you knows about and likes the flick, you are likely to hear about it more often which would, in turn, reinforce the story in your memory as well as drive you into a repeat watch.
• Authentic – The single most important aspect of an eligible movie is that the cinematography and direction must reflect the real-world Hispanic lifestyle and culture as accurately as possible. This will ensure that you absorb the context more rapidly.

Keeping these caveats in mind, the following sections list out some of the most recommended films from as many as 8 countries that speak Spanish. Our suggestion would be to first decide the country whose flavor of Spanish you intend to acquire and then pick the flicks from that country to ensure you are absorbing the right dialect. This extra step will serve to maximize the benefits of watching Spanish movies in endless loops.

Argentina

Anita

Bajo Bandera

Casas De Fuego

El Asaltante

El Día Que Me Amen

El Hijo De La Novia

Fuerza Aérea Sociedad Anónima

La Niña Santa

La Mujer Sin Cabeza

La Señal

Las Manos

Las Viudas De Los Jueves

Los Siete Locos

Mal Día Para Pescar

Memoria Del Saqueo

Plata Quemada

¿Quién Dice Que Es Fácil?

Un Lugar En El Mundo

Una Estrella Y Dos Cafés

Volver

Chile

Cien Niños Esperando Un Tren

Dulce Patria

Julio Comienza En Julio

La Batalla De Chile

La Esperanza

La Nena

No Me Amenaces

Raíz De Chile

Colombia

Cóndores No Entierran Todos Los Días

La Estrategia Del Caracol

La Sombra Del Caminante

La Vendedora De Rosas

Perro Come Perro

Rodrigo D: No Futuro

Cuba

Baragua

Clandestinos

De Cierta Manera

El Otro Francisco

El Rojo Para Los Labios

Gallego

Hasta Cierto Punto

La Muerte De Un Burócrata

La Última Cena

Lejanía

Los Sobrevivientes

Mujer Transparente

Retrato De Teresa

Un Hombre De Exito

Vals De La Habana Vieja

Ecuador

Crónicas

Cuando Me Toque A Mí

¿Qué Tan Lejos?

Ratas, Ratones, Rateros

Sueños En La Mitad Del Mundo

Mexico

Amores Perros

El Callejón De Los Milagros

El Crimen Del Padre Amaro

El Laberinto Del Fauno

Japón

La Muerta En Este Jardín

Luz Silenciosa

Santa Sangre

Subida Al Cielo

Y Tu Mamá También

Nicaragua

Alsino Y El Cóndor

Bananeras

Cinema Alcázar

Con Ánimo De Lucro

De Niña A Madre

El Chogui

El Espectro De La Guerra

El Inmortal

La Insurrección

Metal Y Vidrio

Spain

Abre Los Ojos

Boca A Boca

El Crimen De Cuenca

El Pájaro De La Felicidad

El Orfanato

La Ardilla Roja

La Lengua De La Mariposas

Mar Adentro

¿Qué He Hecho Yo Para Merecer Esto?

Solo Quiero Caminar

Todo Sobre Mi Madre

Uruguay

Caños

Cariñoso

Cerro Corá

El Baño Del Papa

El Último Tren

La Espera

La Esperanza

Llamada Para Un Cartero

Matar A Todos

Paisito

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The Laziest Way To Conquer Spanish

What’s going to be under discussion today is set to radically and fundamentally change the way you approach the Spanish language as a learner. To most purists, this article should read as nothing short of an academic blasphemy but if you manage to believe what we believe and what’s backed by solid, empirical study, acquiring Spanish or any other language of the world is not for the serious learners. The lazier you are, the easier it gets for you; best if you dig all things that come to you on a platter without any effort whatsoever on your part. Stumped? Bear with us and you’ll soon see the inherent sense in this nonsense.

Dr. Krashen’s input hypothesis

Get a crazy amount of input before you start speaking Spanish
Photo credit: Tim licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

The wonder drug this article hinges on is a philosophy in linguistics known as the “input hypothesis”. This is essentially a bunch of 5 hypotheses rolled into one, the gist being that the one and only way to the Holy Grail (read native-level fluency) of language-acquisition is getting smothered by an overwhelming amount of input (reading and listening) in the target language (Spanish in our context) without producing (speaking, talking, etc.) any bit of it at all for at least the initial phase.

In case you are wondering how fluency could ever be attained, without even practicing the Spanish that you absorb during the input, look no further than your very own childhood. Don’t forget that you didn’t utter a single word of your native lingo for a good two years or so while solely being bombarded with constant input from around you. Did that help? Well, it must have done a hell of a job as it is nearly impossible for you to now forget your mother tongue after those years of foundation-building!

If this is still not solid enough reasoning to win your vote, let me tell you where this hypothesis came from. It is a world-renowned linguist and educator who goes by the name of Dr. Stephan Krashen. The fact that he has published over 300 books and research papers in the field of second language acquisition and that he goes to the University of Southern California as a Professor emeritus, should be enough to tell you that this man means business.

How much input is enough input?

OK, now down to the brass-tacks. So, how is this “input hypothesis” to be applied to your leal life Spanish program? Well, it couldn’t get any clearer; the first and the most important thing is to build the ultimate immersion environment around yourself and get an insane amound of input in Spanish, day in and day out. It is also equally important that you set your mind around “acquiring” Spanish and not “learning.” This step is deceptively simple so be careful. What acquiring means is what we did with our mother tongue when we were toddlers. To your Spanish program it means that you shouldn’t calculate how much time to dedicate to Spanish if you want to acquire it. Acquisition cannot be a deliberate activity. It has to be infinitely immersive.

Listen to hours of Latino music, read pages and pages of Spanish novels and newspapers, watch hours of Spanish videos, movies and telenovelas. Essentially don’t attach a rock-solid timeframe to any of these activities. Spanish should flow freely in your world. If your assign hours to any of these activities, you are mostly setting yourself up for failure. Instead of targeting to listen to Spanish music for an hour everyday, you should be targeting listening to only Spanish music whenever you listen to music, regardless of how long. Similarly, I wouldn’t instruct myself to read El Universal® for 30 minutes a day; instead, I will mandate myself to pick El Universal® (or, El País® or some other Spanish paper) and nothing else every time I wish to read a newspaper. This is how Spanish becomes a part of your life. This how Spanish becomes your life. This is how you acquire Spanish. by first allowing Spanish to acquire you!

The worst approach

As if conspiring to keep us from ever becoming bilingual, our schools and colleges have always stressed on grammar and vocabulary like our life depended on them. We are institutionalized to first study and “master” the billion rules of grammer before we open the taps of Spanish input. And then the traditional next step as dictated by academicians around the world is to produce content in Spanish (poetry recitation, forced conversation, essay writing, you name it). Only once we have done a certain amount of output as mandated by our teachers, are we introduced to extensive input, such as reading Spanish stories, listening to Spanish music, well, basically all the fun stuff we can imagine. The sequence is so perfectly reversed that it almost seems deliberate!

The right approach

The natural order of things should be exactly the reverse of what we traditionally do in schools. So, the first step becomes tons and tons of fun stuff in a phase called “input phase”. Just listen and read and listen and read. No talking, no writing, no essays, no recitations. The ultimate couch-potato’s promised land of milk and honey! Only once comfortable with this phase (your comprehension abilities will tell you, don’t worry about when), it’s time to start producing. Imitate native speakers, recite Spanish poetry, sing Spanish songs, write Spanish essays, talk in Spanish, chat in Spanish.

In short, just barf out all the Spanish that you have been acquiring through silent input over all these months. The last step, interestingly, happens to be grammar. Yes, you were speaking fluent English (or whatever your native tongue is) way before those monsters buried you under piles of grammar rules. Grammar is never the be-all of any language. It should only be a tool used to perfect your speech and writing once you are well-versed with the language in every practical sense.

Grammar is indispensible. It is grammar that gives a literary flair to your Spanish. It is grammar that tells you how Spanish changes colors when moved from the books to the streets. But the right time to scratch under the surface for grammar is in the end and not in the beginning. A sufficient amount of input is all you need to be able to tell what word sequence sounds correct and what doesn’t.

So, strap your boots and dive head-on into the ocean of Spanish before you even think of grammar. until you are conversant enough, stow that heavy, red book away – out of sight, out of reach. Just take in the Spanish around you. Soak it all up. Have fun. And enjoy as you get fluent phrase by phrase, word by word, absolutely unaware. Think of a lazier way to acquire Spanish? I bet you can’t.

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Learn Spanish In A Sentence

Acquiring Spanish (read Spanish vocabulary) is most efficient when done in context. The importance of color a context lends to any new word or phrase and its role in long-term retention just can’t be stressed enough. In order to illustrate this today, we will pick a very simplistic yet practical idea which will not only help you learn new words but also make it easier for you to absorb some essential Spanish grammar without memorizing a single dead-beat rule from that spooky grammar tome. All this as you also gradually get a fair understanding of some fun and interesting trivia on Latino culture. Three birds, one stone!

Ojos que te vieron ir...
Photo credit: Rob Marquardt licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

The method we will be introducing here is not a new discovery. It’s rather a very simple and extremely effective technique lost in the rubble of classroom grammar and dictionary word-lists. The idea is simple: We pick an inconspicuous Spanish phrase or sentence and perform a thorough autopsy on it showing all aspects of its usage, including meaning and grammar.

In order to make the whole exercise more interesting and culturally relevant, these sentences will often be local piropos (pick-up lines), refranes (proverbs), or excerpts of street conversations. This way, the context will not appear bookish as it does in most books that claim to get you from zilch to fluent in Spanish in a few weeks.

Let’s start wth today’s piropo which goes like this (The sense interpreted is given in parentheses and may or may not be the literal translation):

Ojos que te vieron ir, ¿cuándo te verán volver? (Eyes that saw you leave, when will they see you return?)

The nuts and bolts

Let’s break it down, perform the autopsy. For this, it is important that we first see how this sentence literally transliterates and then use some reverse engineering to understand why words are strung together in the fashion they are.

The sentence transliterates as, “Eyes that you (object) saw go, when you (object) will see return?” Hardly makes any logical sense, right? Bear with me for a few minutes and you’ll see just how smoothly words flow right in place. Here we go:

Ojos: This is the Spanish for “eyes”. Ojo is the singular form but since we are talking about both the eyes here, we say ojos. Simple, wasn’t it? Just use visualization to remember this word and you are through. Or, if that doesn’t suit your taste, try flashcards or Anki. It’s not difficult when you break it down.

que: This simply translates to the English word, “that”. Don’t confuse this with qué which means “what” of English questions. So, qué (with that little spike above “e”) is “what” (as in, “What is your name?”) and que is “that” (as in, “The ball that hit me”); qué for questions, que for answers. Hope this didn’t hurt much.

te: This is the Spanish for “you” when used as an object. The English word, “you”, is tú when used as a subject (as in, “You should leave”) and te when used as an object (as in, “I love you” or “She gave it to you”). See the difference? The rules of Spanish dictate that objects like te be immediately followed by the verb affecting them. That’s the reason the most overused Spanish phrase, te quiero (I love you) has te followed by quiero (I love) and not the other way around as is the case with it’s English translation.

vieron: The Spanish for “saw”; The English verb, “to see”, translates to ver in Spanish but because Spanish is a highly inflected language (has a lot of conjugations), ver is rarely used in its basic form (infinitive). So, while the Spanish for “to see” is ver, the actual word used in a sentence will depend on the tense and mood of the context. Here, we are talking about the eyes seeing you leave once in the past (only once and not repeatedly or habitually), so the form of ver used is vieron. If you must dig into the rules of grammar governing this usage, grab your grammar book and read all you want on the preterit tense. Now back to our vieron, this is the word you’ll use whenever the subject is plural (like “two eyes” in our sentence today) and the action is a one-time event in the past (like the eyes that “saw” you leave “only once” as implied in our sentence).

ir: The Spanish for “to go”; this is an example of a verb being used in its most primitive form also known as the “infinitive”.

cuándo: This is how you say “when” in Spanish when asking a question (as in, “When are you going?”). Again, don’t miss the accent mark without which it becomes cuando, meaning when in a non-question sense (as in “I will go when she comes”).

te verán: We already discovered that the Spanish word for “to see” is ver. And we also learned that it is almost always used in one of the many conjugated forms depending on the tense. Verán is simply the form to be used when talking about an event in future performed by more than one subject. Here, we are talking about two eyes so the subject is plural and the verb to be used is ver, hence verán qualifies as the form to be used in this sentence. We already learned that te is the Spanish for you in its object form and that objects come before verb in question, so the Spanish for “will see you” is te vieron (the subject being understood to be plural).

volver: This word means “to return” in it’s basic form (one important tip for identifying any Spanish verb in its infinitive form – all such words end in “-ar”, “-er”, or “-ir”).

String’em all together

Now let’s bring them all together. Ojos que te vieron ir means, “Eyes that saw you go,” in the following sentence structure common in Spanish: Subject (plural; here, “eyes”) - connector (here, “that”) - object (singular; here, “you”) - verb1 (here, preterit of “to see”) - verb2 (here, infinitive of “to go”). ¿cuándo te verán volver? means, “When will they see you again?” in the following sentence structure in Spanish: Question word (here, “when?”) - object (singular; here, “you”) - verb1 (here, future of “to see”) - verb2 (here, used in the sense of “again”)

We hope this one sentence has given you enough dose of Spanish for one day and taught new words and new grammar without jagging your brains like those boring books you are dumped with in the classrooms do.

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Does Messi Speak The Spanish Of The Illiterate?

Most textbooks claiming to teach easy Spanish would have you believe that the letters “y” and “ll” are pronounced the same in this language and that the sound they carry is that of “y” in “yellow” in Latin America and that of “llio” in “bullion” in Spain. But in reality, native Spanish language is far from this simplistic picture. This language was not born with similar-sounding “y” and “ll”; on the contrary, early Spanish mandated that “y” be pronounced as the “j” in “jug” and “ll” be pronounced as “y” in “yellow”. Centuries of permutation and combination meant that this distinction blurred almost completely – almost.

Does “y” always sound like “ll”?

Yeísmo in America
Photo credit: Davius licensed CC0 1.0 Universal

Yes and no. The distinction between “y” and “ll” in Spanish has almost disappeared today except for some minority pockets such as the rural north in Spain and the indigenous-dominated regions (particularly, Quechua-heavy areas) of Latin America. Today’s Spanish-speakers have a whole range of sounds they attach to their “y” and “ll” and how they pronounce these letters often tell where they come from and what their cultural background is.

Today, we will see how this works in Argentina. Why Argentina? Because these letters don’t see as much diversity in their pronunciation in any part of the world as they do in Argentina.

Pronunciation of “y” and “ll” in Argentina has been the subject of many serious researches and surveys and because of the extremely fluid nature of Spanish in today’s world, these regionalisms may or may not hold water in times to come. Hence, please read this article with a pinch of salt and do not treat these demarcations as etched in stone. Just see them as the state of affairs as of today, more or less. No language, let alone Spanish, can be declared to have a rigid accent-region association at all times; this can only be approximated at best.

Argentina: One country, many pronunciations

Most Argentineans pronounce these letters as either “sh” in “sheep” or as “s” in “measure”. You’ll rarely hear an Argentinean use the “llio” (of “million”), “j” (of “jello”) or “y” (of “yellow”) sound. Now the question that arises is which one, “sh” of “sheep” or “s” of “measure”? One study suggested once that this is a matter of education or, more significantly, social class. Those in the lower strata of the social hierarchy tend to veer in favor of “sh” of “sheep” while the more elite, educated class prefer “s” of “measure”.

The story doesn’t end here. Delve deeper and more shades of gray start popping out. For example, even the Porteños (residents of Buenos Aires) have a wide range of pronunciation. Most primary school teachers are heard teaching the “llio” of “million” for the letter, “ll”. This is deliberate and affects only “ll” and not “y”. The reason could be to reinforce the phonetic distinction between “y” and “ll” and help the children learn which word takes which letter.

This distinction, more often than not, diffuses with age and hardly any grown-up conversation is heard pronouncing “ll” as the “llio” of “million” anyplace in Buenos Aires. While most of Argentina follows the above-mentioned pronunciation, some indigenous people and those in the north-western parts do use the “y” sound of “yellow” for the Spanish “y” and “ll”, in line with the rest of (or rather, most of) Latin America.

Where are we headed?

Messi pronounces his “ll” as /sh/ like most others of his generation
Photo credit: Adam Jones licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

To push us farther from closure, modern studies have also shown a new trend where the socio-educational distinction described above is rapidly giving way to a new, generational distinction. What this means is that while the fact that the elites prefer the “s” of “measure” while the uneducated prefer the “sh” of “sheep” did hold good some three decades ago, it doesn’t today.

Today, the trend is for younger Porteños to prefer the “sh” of “sheep” regardless of educational or social background while those of the older generation prefer the other pronunciation, i.e., “s” of “measure”. Endorsing this theory, the famous Argentinean soccer legend, Lionel Messi pronounces his “ll”/“y” as the “sh” of “sheep” despite being quite bit of an elite. Even if you consider the fact that Messi comes from Rosario, some 180 miles from Buenos Aires, it is still within the sphere of common linguistic influence known as the Rioplatense dialect area.

The indigenous influence

It is true that an overwhelming majority of Spanish speakers around the world, including those from Argentina, today don’t recognize the distinction between the Spanish “y” and “ll”. However, there are some exceptions to the rule even today. In Argentina, these people mainly come from the provinces of Corrientes and Misiones. Those from Corrientes pronounce their “y” as the “j” in “jello” and “ll” as the “llio” in “million”. The Misioneros, however, pronounce their “y” in a fashion that approximates the English “ch” sound. This could be attributed to the Guaraní influence on their speech. Nevertheless, barring these folks, as stated above, almost every Argentinean is a yeísta (one who doesn’t differenciate between the Spanish “y” and “ll”). Furthermore, the natives of Cuyo, Córdoba, and the Mesopotamia regions don’t use the “s” and “sh” sounds of “measure” and “sheep” respectively!

These idiosyncrasies of Argentinean Spanish are not meant to put you off-base with information overload. They are here only to demonstrate the extremely volatile nature of Spanish and give you some fun trivia. As far as your learning is concerned, you just need to focus on the way these letters are pronounced in the specific dialect of Spanish that you are targeting. If you don’t have any particular dialect on your mind (it is highly recommended though that you choose one right at the onset; you’ll only thank yourself later that you did), you’ll be understood everywhere in the Milky Way if you just use the “y” of “yellow” or “j” of “jello” for both “ll” and “y” in all contexts.

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Forget Boring Word-Lists

How many of us have spent countless hours reading and memorizing long lists of uninteresting words in Spanish along with their English meanings and craved for an alternative to this monotonous, highly regimented way of learning Spanish? I bet most of us have. And out of personal experience, I must say this is the least effective way of acquiring new vocabulary in any language, Spanish being no exception. It is just too much work with too little fun, not to mention the risk of forgetting them that still looms large. So much for the hard work and dead-beat monotony of a regimented learning style! So, what’s the alternative?

Why are word-lists ineffective?

Mugging up words in isolation is infinitely ineffective
Photo credit: kafka4prez licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Other than the monotony that comes with mugging up lists after lists of Spanish words, there are two major demerits to this style of learning Spanish. For starters, our conversations are not lists of words; they are meaningful strings of words and phrases called sentences that are used in a context that essentially dictate their meanings.

Secondly, mugging up words out of context is never a sure-fire way of committing them to memory in the long run; such words are highly prone to being forgotten. The keyword here is “context”. Without context, everything is meaningless and all efforts are wasted efforts.

For example, let’s take the word, ir (to go). You have written down this ever-important word in your notebook, in your flashcard, in Anki®, everyplace and have revised it over and over again say, a thousand times until you remember that ir means to go. Now, let’s put this newly-acquired vocabulary to some good use. Try saying, “I am going to the bank” in Spanish (voy al banco). Given that you already know that the subject (here, yo) is omitted in Spanish, that “to” loosely translates to a in Spanish, that the Spanish for “the bank” is el banco, that a and el when together become al, and that the Spanish for the English verb, “to go” is ir, you will most likely not be able to think this sentence in Spanish and be spontaneous with your rendition the way fluent natives are. Reason? You translate each word into Spanish, conjugate the verb according to the tense in question, string them together, all in your head before you speak a single sentence. All this takes time. And costs confidence.

Ever noticed how some people are so thorough with English that they could devour classics like Shakespeare and produce literary masterpieces in the form of exquisite poetry and essays without so much as touching a dictionary or thesaurus? Ever noticed how some of them despite their massive knowledge of English, still cannot speak with a consistent, sustained fluency for any length of time in practical situations? What do you think sets them aside? Always remember, knowledge of a language is in no way proportional to conversational abilities or fluency in that tongue.

The effective way

We don’t conjugate and translate before speaking if it’s English, do we? We are fluent because we “think” in English. And thats the natural way with any organic language. So, what am I hinting at? Learn the context, not the word. Learn sentences and phrases because they have words in readily useable form. And use them in your everyday life even if it makes you sound stupid.

Take another example from my personal experience. I have always hated irregular verbs in Spanish and have always found remembering them a mountain of a task. Dar (to give) is one such verb. Remembering the meaning of this verb in its infinitive form didnt help much when speaking actual Spanish. One day I just happened to find out it’s imperative form, dámelo (give it to me). Then I went on a roll using it with everyone around me. When I felt romantic, I told my girlfriend, Dame el mano (give me your hand); when I needed a pen, I told my friend, Dame esa pluma (give me that pen). Got the idea?

Then one day I learned the phrase, dímelo (say it to me). This one sounded too similar to dámelo to ignore and it stuck. Now, just learning a couple of expressions, I effectively absorbed not just the Spanish for “give” and “say” but also some vital grammar such as, direct and indirect object pronouns and imperative conjugations of -ar and -ir verbs! I call this the bang-for-the-buck approach. Context. Learn words as parts of phrases and sentences and use them in context and I promise you will remember new words and get fluent in Spanish without actively striving for it.

So, the key takeaway from this rant is that your flashcard decks, physical or software-based, should be loaded with contextual sentences and not isolated words if you wish to get fluent in Spanish. Even if you are using visualization and mnemonics to memorize lists of words, try applying it to phrases or sentences instead of mere words. Color whatever you learn with practical context – context that will eventually facilitate not just speaking in Spanish but even thinking in it. Thinking in Spanish is the essence of fluent speech. If you continue to translate and conjugate while speaking, you will not be able to sustain a reasonably fluent conversation despite an otherwise strong knowledge of the Spanish language and even literature. Try it for yourself and let us know what it did to your Spanish.

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2 Ways To Weave More Spanish Around You

So long as you desire to build more Spanish around you, there is no dearth of means of doing so. We have discussed several excellent methods of creating a highly immersive environment right where you live without spending a fortune. Today, we will discuss two more ways that can, well, intensify our Spanish immersion endeavors and take us to a whole new level of absorption. In line with our principles of austerity and engagement, these can be implemented for free and can potentially engage you for hours at a stretch, thus injecting more Spanish into you. As said before, Spanish must invade every aspect of your lifestyle.

Is there enough Spanish around you?

It has always been stressed that the key to near-perfect immersion is employing Spanish in everything that we would otherwise normally do in English or any other language. At least as far as possible. So, you have built up a massive collection of Spanish DVDs, are watching an insane amount of Spanish movies and Spanish telenovelas on TV, reading only El Universal® instead of The Times®, devouring tons of Spanish novels and comics, and have set your laptop, Facebook®, Google®, etc. to Spanish. Awesome! Let’s take a step back and think. Could we still be missing out on anything that is yet to be turned into Spanish? Any hidden opportunity? Think hard enough and you’ll soon see, there always remains something overlooked and today, we will review 2 such areas.

The philosophy of immersion is simple: Nothing you do must ever be done using anything but Spanish. Of course, you cannot spend every waking minute of your life studying Spanish, reading books, listening to music, watching movies, and reviewing flashcards only. While these activities should account for a major portion of your day, almost certainly you still have some gaps in your schedule and it is these gaps that we will attempt to fill with Spanish here. Think about how much time you spend relaxing with recreational indoor games and think about how much time you spend in your kitchen. Even if you don’t, it’s worth considering. Let’s see how these activities can be translated into Spanish to give you a seamless immersion.

Play games with Spanish

Scrabble® is the best game for acquiring Spanish vocabulary stress-free
Photo credit: hdaniel licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Most of us spent a major portion of our formative years playing Scrabble®, Hangman®, Monopoly®, and countless other board games. These games were more than just recreation and entertainment. They shaped up our childhood. They were the subtle hands behind our improved skills, like logical reasoning, mathematical aptitude, and most importantly, vocabulary.

Yes, the impact of games like Scrabble® and Hangman® on vocabulary acquisition can hardly be denied. Imagine the results if you start playing these games in Spanish and constantly strive for perfection. And strive you will because that’s the very virtue of games; they are built to kick your butts until winning becomes your habit. They did wonders to my Spanish vocabulary and, I am sure, won’t disappoint you either.

If multimedia games are your poison, almost every conceivable title today, leastwise the most well-known, major labels, comes with a Spanish version. Build a discipline to play whatever you play, in Spanish and only Spanish. I admit playing an intensive MMRPG in an alien lingo would not do much for your odds at winning in the beginning, but a few losses are honestly no big deal if you are learning Spanish. Given enough time (and it won’t be too long), you will come to grow more confident and the Spanish instructions of your favorite game would become second nature to you.

Personally, I would still prefer the traditional technology-proof route. There cannot be a cheaper alternative to Spanish board games, when it comes to stress-free recreational learning within one’s home. It doesn’t matter even if you need to cheat and use the dictionary in the beginning. no matter how you play, it’s impossible not to absorb at least a fraction of Spanish that hits you during the course of each game. Even if you acquire just one word after playing Scrabble® using the dictionary for a whole hour, treat yourself. No learning is small learning. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Build Spanish in your kitchen – meal by meal

Why spare your kitchen?
Photo credit: Sam Felder licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

If you enjoy cooking as much as I do (just kidding; I hate cooking), you are probably spending at least no less than an hour in the kitchen everyday. Why not include this wonderful space in your otherwise partially immersed environment? There’s a lot of room for Spanish in this space, trust me. To start with, try labeling all cans, containers, and bottles in Spanish. So, you can have labeled cans containing azúcar (sugar), sal (salt), salvia (sage), etc. sitting in your larder constantly pumping you with effortless Spanish day in and day out. Wasn’t that easy?

Another excellent way to add more Spanish to your life the delicious way is to try cooking in Spanish. Just mine the Internet for some delicious recipes written completely in Spanish and cook off them. This might be a bit exasperating at first but over time, you’ll notice that most words repeat over and over again and hence stick to your memory without any effort. These would be the words for most cooking-related activities like broiling, boiling, heating, chopping, and so on. Just be careful with the recipes at least in the beginning so as not to misinterpret or overlook anything or else you might end up with something horribly inedible on your plate!

One recreational and the other delicious, these immersion ideas are sure to give the laziest of you enough Spanish in your life to keep you motivated until you acquire perfect fluency. Let me know if your experience has been anything but uninspiring.

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Che Beyond Guevara

For most of us lesser mortals who don’t have Spanish in our blood, the word, che, stands for Ernesto Guevara of Argentina and little else. However, now that we are learning Spanish with dreams of becoming one of them someday, it is interesting as well as essential to know that che is to the Argentineans what güey is to the Mexicans, a word with no particular meaning yet ubiquitous all over the country, more so than probably any other vernacular expression. If you are in Buenos Aires, you’d hear this word spoken almost twice every minute and this is no exaggeration of this word’s dominance over the Argentinean lifestyle.

Che is to Argentina what Güey is to Mexico
Photo credit: Adam Jones licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

This article digs into the anatomy of the expression that has, over the decades, come to define the Argentinean identity. In fact, the English equivalents, like buddy or dude, don’t even remotely define your nationality or heritage in the same way as che does.

So what does it really mean?

This word could be used in any one of the three senses depending on the context; though largely interrelated, they have subtle differences in meanings only native Argentinean ears can catch out of nature. These three uses are:

1. As the local Spanish equivalent of “hey” in English (like when you’d call the bartender’s attention for more Quilmes), 
2. As the local Spanish equivalent of “buddy” or “dude” in English (like when you have
3. As a meaningless interjection, a conversation filler (like “er” or “you know” in English or este in Mexican Spanish)

So, we can see che is more than Che Guevara. In fact, Ernesto Guevara himself got this nickname because of his habit of saying this word all the time, just like any Argentinian. Let’s delve a bit deeper into each of the 3 scenarios listed above. Depending on the context, it loosely corresponds to the English expressions like “mate”, “buddy”, “man”, etc. It can also play the role of an interjection not different in usage from the English word, “hey”, when calling someone’s attention; for example, “Che Javi, ¡ven aquí!” (Hey Javi, come here!).

As said above, che can also be employed as an informal conversation filler to assert comprehension, interest, or agreement. In this sense, common equivalents in English would be “well”, “so”, “right”, or even “er”.

The Guevara angle

Ernesto “Che” Guevara de la Serna
Photo credit: Leonora Enking licensed CC BY-SA 2.0

Che has also gained currency in other countries of Latin America that share borders with Argentina, such as Paraguay, Brazil (where it’s spelled tchê), Perú, and Bolivia. Che owes much of its popularity to Mr. Guevara who helped spread it’s usage to Cuba and to the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, and even beyond. Guevara himself earned this nickname while working with Cuban exiles in Guatemala in mid-1950s from his dialectal use of the word. To his Cuban comrades, the expression was a curious feature of his idiolect. Most Latinos know him simply as el Che as a result. Had it not been for him and his role in the Cuban Revolution, the expression would have remained confined within the borders of Argentina, a whole world outside totally unaware of its existence.

So, if you ever happen to be in Argentina and wish to sound like them, you know what the first thing to do would be. Yes, say che each time you begin or end a sentence, pause in between, or call out to someone regardless of how far they are from you. Of course, you also need to master Spanish before you start sounding even remotely like them but che must still be an integral part of your vocabulary.

Origins of che

As interesting as mysterious is the story of che’s etymology which is still not very clear. It is quite possible that this word is drawn from the many South American Indian tongues. At least four indigenous languages are know to have che in their vocabularies; in Guaraní (meaning “I” or “my”), in Mapudungun (meaning “people”), and in Tehuelche and Puelche (meaning “man” in both).

Ancient Spanish is also known to have a word, ce, that was used in a vocative sense for calling out someone’s attention. Theories range from plausible (che being the shortened version of escuche meaning “listen”) to remote (che deriving from the Italian ciao meaning “bye” or cioe meaning “that is”).

Outside of Argentina

Now, time for some interesting trivia. The Argentine word, che has a distant European cousin that goes as xe and is widely used in Valencia as an expression of exasperation, surprise, or protest. The link between Valencia and xe is so strong that the Valencia CF is popularly referred to as the “Xe Team”! Xe also exists in the streets of Terres de l’Ebre in Catalonia.

Coming back to our good old che, it is also used in the Philipines, a former Spanish colony, with a slightly different connotation. Here, che is used when interrupting or dismissing a speaker, almost similar to “shut up” in English.

And for our friends in the Balkans, che is not different from re, which is a similar interjection in your part of the world with identical usage.

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